A Total Mortification of the Movie Industry, Especially of the British

Rating: 1/10 (29 June 2003)

This movie is a total disappointment. I feel utterly indignant and cheated as a movie-goer and a consumer of the movie ticket. I also find myself a complete idiot to have even considered seeing this movie in the first place. Not only was this movie a humiliation of the viewers' intelligence, but it was also a complete fiasco, either as a scary movie, or a zombie movie. Basically, it's the type of movie that you want it to end, but it just doesn't and keeps going nowhere. This two-hour movie is a total torture for the audience and simply doesn't do justice to the theatres and it explains why the British can't dominate the movie industry as the Americans do.
First of all, the movie never explains clearly why it starts off the way it is (why's the protagonist, Jim, lying alone on a hospital bed naked. And miraculously a vulnerable man like him didn't get infected like the others.) It also never explains clearly how the monkeys got infected with the virus and it becomes just a cursory set-up of the story. As well, the beginning is a complete drag as it's almost a fifteen-minute running around in a city in England that is already evacuated. The beginning and the end just don't make for a good movie and don't integrate with each other, especially when the viewers also have to put up with the mundane and uneventful middle section.

Secondly, much part of the movie is unnecessary. I'm not going to elaborate it as I don't want to give the plot away. The trip to the army base can't be more boring and unsurprising. Many audiences would just want to make use of this part as a bathroom break, as a lot of people in the theatre actually did. And most of the 'jokes' are so pathetic that the audience would laugh at, but simply because there's nothing else in the movie that the viewers could appreciate and is worth laughing.
Thirdly, if you're looking forward to seeing a scary zombie movie, I'm sorry. The episodic and predictable zombie popping out of nowhere and their annoying squeaky voices can only drive you crazy.
Furthermore, the movie could've redeemed itself when it comes to the part when the survivors meet the soldiers if it dwells on a little bit more explaining the intrinsic evilness of human nature and makes it the movie's theme. But instead, the director didn't use this part wisely and it is shown so ambiguous and hasty that it becomes just some bloody, pointless carnage. You'll wind up cursing the characters for what they've done to each other. Jim comes off as a reckless maniac and a psycho, so as the head of the army. Hence, the movie itself is not thought-provoking at all and just ends up going nowhere and having no theme at all. The movie barely has any plot and character development. It spends too much time showing how deserted the cities in England and how gross the zombies are, but lacks the right development that a movie should have. The interactions between the main characters are very contrived and reveals little of their personalities. Many characters eventually become a bunch of one-dimensional characters. As a result, you don't feel for the characters in the movie and sometimes you'd even hope that they'd die soon so you could go home earlier with your frustration.
This movie simply doesn't make an iota of sense (The story itself is already so stretched and contrived; if most part of England was infected, why isn't there any foreign assistance? Why the other countries just quarantined England? What the hell is the U.N and Uncle Same doing?). The title 28-days have nothing to do with the plot but simply just a haphazard number of days that the story goes along, and it also doesn't fit the tagline: The days are numbered. The scenes are gross and crude but not SCARY. They're only meant to gross the audience out. The British ended up being a despicable copycat of the American Resident Evil by producing a sub-standard version of a zombie movie.
In conclusion, why can't the British make something better out of their sophistication? I thought this is part of their tradition, but maybe I'm mistaken.
Rating: 0/10